


Don't You Worry, Child

by InterstellarBlue (nagi_schwarz), nagi_schwarz



Series: Fantagio Boys [2]
Category: ASTRO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22821445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/InterstellarBlue, https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Sanha promised himself he'd never join a gang. All he wanted to do was help his mother.Written for the band names comment_fic prompt: "To Be Continued, any, Imagine Dragons."
Series: Fantagio Boys [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640608
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020, K-pop and K-drama AUs





	Don't You Worry, Child

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WannaBeYourEunwoo (SherlockianSyndromes)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockianSyndromes/gifts).



Sanha knew what his neighborhood was like. He’d seen the men with the greased-back hair, the cheap suits and gold chains, the missing fingers and the ornate tattoos. He’d seen plenty of other boys at his school start to change the way they styled their hair, the way they’d walked and talked. He’d seen plenty of those boys drop out and then reappear in new uniforms, all thinly-veiled violence and cigarettes.

Even though Sanha had three older brothers, he knew the burden was on him to help his mother with her medical bills. After his father had walked out and taken the oldest three boys with him, Sanha was the only one left. He refused to go the way of his classmates. He would find honest-paying jobs and work hard and make sure his mother got the help she needed.

As much as Sanha despised his father for walking out on them like he had, he’d given Sanha two invaluable gifts: a guitar, and guitar lessons. Sanha had inherited his singing voice from his mother, but his guitar skills were definitely from his father. Every day after school, he hit the streets in search of a clean but crowded corner to busk for money. He couldn’t ever stay in one place very long, was run off by gangsters or business owners or occasionally police, but he made pretty good money. If he was lucky, he could go down into train stations when it was cold or wet out.

Unfortunately, he only had a soft case for his guitar, so if it was really raining, he had to stay under cover to keep his guitar dry. Sanha had been about to depart for a park that had good busking spots when the sky opened and a deluge descended. Sanha ducked under the nearest awning and huddled against the wall, shivering. He didn’t have a fancy smartphone, so he couldn’t check the weather forecast. Should he give up and go home?

The door beside him swung open, and someone said, “Come inside where it’s warm. I’ll give you a free cup of tea.”

Sanha turned, and the prettiest man he had ever seen was standing in the doorway of - a restaurant. Called Soul Plate.

According to the man’s nametag, he was MJ, the sous-chef.

“Thank you, ahjusshi.” Sanha bobbed his head politely and stepped up into the little restaurant.

“You can call me MJ-ssi,” he said. “Come on in.”

The diner was surprisingly full, but MJ led Sanha to a corner table and brought him a mug of tea. 

“What are you doing out here all by yourself? You’re, what, fifteen?”

“Sixteen,” Sanha said. 

“Shouldn’t kids your age be at after-school study or hagwon or something?” MJ leaned his hip against the table and crossed his arms, looking own at Sanha, but Sanha knew if they’d both been standing Sanha would have been by far the taller one.

“My mother doesn’t have money for hagwon. I busk for money, to help her.”

“Oh yeah? Show me what you’ve got.”

Sanha blinked. “Right now?”

MJ nodded. “That’s your guitar, isn’t it?”

“Ah, yes, MJ-ssi.”

“Let’s hear a song.” MJ fished in his apron pocket and came up with more money than Sanha had ever been given for a tip before. He placed the bill on the table.

Well, MJ had given Sanha shelter from the rain, hot tea, and some money. That was worth at least one song. Sanha unzipped his guitar case and settled his guitar across his lap. He strummed a chord to check the tuning, and then he started in on an Eddy Kim song.

MJ whistled appreciatively. “Good song, good song. It’ll sound better once you’ve done your service, kid.”

Sanha managed a smile, then kept on playing. He noticed other patrons in the diner watching him, but MJ was swaying to the beat and smiling, so Sanha kept on singing.

When the song was over, MJ applauded. “That was really good! You must make a lot of money.”

“I’d make more with a real job, but -”

“I’ll tell you what,” MJ said. “Our dishwasher just quit. Come be our dishwasher, and you can busk on the weekends for money.”

Sanha’s eyes went wide. “Really?”

MJ nodded. “Really. I appreciate talent when I see it.”

Sanha started to put his guitar away, then paused. “Wait, do I get paid for being the dishwasher?”

“Of course, silly. Come on. I’ll show you where you can stow your guitar while you work.”

Sanha followed MJ back into the kitchen, where three other young men were working, one of whom had dark green hair. One of them was tall and pale and black-haired and looked like a prince. The third looked to be about Sanha’s age and had dark hair and a round face.

“Who’s this?” the green-haired one asked, balancing a heavily-laden serving tray.

MJ beamed. “Our new dishwasher. What’s your name?”

“Yoon Sanha,” he said.

“Hyung,” the black-haired one said, his tone something between a warning and a protest.

“Come, put your guitar here, and we’ll get you an apron,” MJ said, ignoring the protest.

Sanha went into the side room MJ had pointed at. When he stepped out, the black-haired one was looming over MJ and glaring, but MJ just smiled and shrugged, and then he called out to Sanha. 

“I’ll show you how the dishwasher works.”

Washing dishes wasn’t complicated, but it was hard work. Junsong, the prep cook whose prep station was near Sanha’s station, helped him load the heavy dish racks into the machine. 

Jinjin, the hall manager who currently had dark green hair, sometimes needed Sanha’s help carrying dirty dishes back into the kitchen.

“You’ll get strong fast,” MJ said to him one time.

Eunwoo, the ice prince of a head chef, didn’t talk to him at all.

At the end of the day, Sanha was exhausted, but MJ gave him a lot more money than he’d have earned as a busker, and Sanha was grateful. He was technically too young to have a real job, but he figured the police wouldn’t be checking a small, friendly restaurant like this one.

“You coming back tomorrow?” MJ asked.

Sanha nodded.

MJ patted him on the shoulder. “See you tomorrow after school!”

Sanha took his guitar and headed home.

Working at Soul Plate was fun, and even though it was tiring, it wasn’t difficult work, and at the end of the day Sanha had enough mental energy to do his homework. He knew he had to at least graduate from high school, and after his mother was better and her bills were paid, he could try to go to college.

On Saturday night, MJ let him play his guitar and sing for money for half an hour during dinner. Sanha got decent tips, and he was very grateful, but then it was right back into the kitchen to do dishes and help out Junsong, who’d picked up the dishwashing slack in the meantime.

“Does Eunwoo hate me?” Sanha asked MJ that night, as they worked together to close up the restaurant.

“No,” MJ said. “He hates everyone. Don’t take it personally.”

“He seems to like Jinjin-hyung, though.”

MJ’s expression turned dreamy. “Well, everyone likes Jinjin.”

Sanha thought that not everyone liked Jinjin as much as MJ did.

Sanha liked MJ a lot. Even though he was a good six years older, he wasn’t stuck-up and serious, was fun and full of laughter, liked Sanha’s jokes. Junsong seemed nice enough, and Jinjin too, but Jinjin was always busy with customers. Sanha learned quickly it was best to do what Eunwoo said and otherwise keep his head down and work, and as long as he did what Eunwoo said when he said it, everything would be fine.

And then one day Eunwoo stopped by the dishwashing station and held out a white envelope and a small flip phone.

“I need you to deliver this for me.”

Sanha, up to his elbows in soapy water, turned to him. “Yes, Chef?”

“The address is on this phone, along with a picture of the man who should accept delivery. There’s some extra money in it for you.”

Delivering envelopes was unrelated to fetching and washing dishes, but Sanha was a restaurant employee, and the least-necessary of all the workers, so if Eunwoo needed a random business-related errand, it made the most sense to ask Sanha to do it.

“Don’t look in the envelope. Don’t give the envelope to anyone but the man whose picture is on the phone. Text me as soon as the envelope has been received, and then come straight back here.” Eunwoo caught Sanha’s gaze and held it.

Sanha reached for a dish towel to dry his hands off. “Yes, Chef.”

“Don’t forget to take your apron off before you go.”

Right. Aprons were never supposed to leave the restaurant.

Sanha shrugged on his jacket, pocketed the envelope, and then checked the phone. The address was within walking distance. There were only three numbers in the phone: Eunwoo, MJ, and Jinjin. He called out to Jinjin to let him know he was running an errand, and then he hit the pavement.

Eunwoo hadn’t said how much extra money he’d give Sanha for the errand, but money was money, and if it was bigger than a busking tip, it was good enough. Sanha’s mother thought he was still busking for money. He was careful to only let her know a fraction of how much he’d earned, because he didn’t trust their neighbors, and if they heard his mother saying she had extra money, they might come looking for it when Sanha was at work.

He knew never to keep all his money in one place on his person, and he kept his hands in his pockets on the flip phone and envelope.

The address Eunwoo had given him was to a fancy tea shop. Given that Soul Plate sold tea, that wasn’t a surprise. Sanha stepped inside and checked the picture on the phone. It was of a very handsome man in an expensive suit.

That man was standing behind the counter of the shop, so Sanha headed over to him.

“How may I help you?” the man asked. He looked like he could be a leading man in a drama.

“Delivery from Cha Eunwoo.” Sanha held out the envelope.

The man raised his eyebrows, but then he accepted the envelope. “Thank you. You may go.”

Sanha bowed, and he fired off a text message to Eunwoo - typing on the little nine-number keypad was slow and clumsy - and then he headed back to the restaurant.

Eunwoo gave him a really big tip for the errand.

So after that, whenever anyone wanted Sanha to run an errand - deliver a letter, a message, a package, or accept the same - he said yes. Soul Plate did business with a bunch of places beyond the super fancy tea shop, and it was nice to get out of the kitchen sometimes, to explore the neighborhood a bit.

Given that Soul Plate was always busy, and plenty of people who wore expensive clothes and accessories came to dine there - including the rich man from the tea shop and a bunch of his actor-handsome friends - Sanha wondered why Eunwoo, MJ, and Jinjin didn’t use emails or parcel delivery services more, but he liked the extra money (he was close to being able to get his own phone, because he _hated_ the keyboard on the little flip phone), so he always said yes to running an errand.

One night, right around closing, MJ asked Sanha to run a quick message down the street to the butcher who they often used. As the Butcher usually had his hands full - or messy - he wasn’t great at answering his phone, so Sanha running messages back and forth made sense, though the messages rarely made sense to him. Even though Eunwoo was young and handsome, he must have been in the restaurant business a long time, to have developed this weird shorthand with his merchants and suppliers. Jinjin and Junsong had already clocked out by the time Sanha shrugged on his jacket to head down the street, murmuring the message under his breath to make sure he didn’t forget it.

Butcher looked very stressed out when Sanha arrived even though the shop was empty. Sanha delivered the message and waited for a reply, but Butcher just shook his head and waved him away, so Sanha bowed and headed back out into the humid night. He wondered if MJ would be mad that there was no reply. Should he have stuck around longer? But MJ would give him a nice tip. MJ was even more generous than Eunwoo (though Jinjin was the most generous of all; he was also the least likely to ask for an errand that took Sanha out of the restaurant).

Tomorrow night was Sanha’s busking night. He’d figured out a playlist of popular covers that people would like but that wouldn’t disturb the dining experience, and he had a new song he wanted to try. He hummed it as he walked, testing some adlibs and variations on the final chorus.

A hand came down on his shoulder. 

“Hey. What message did you deliver to the Butcher?”

Sanha turned, startled.

Three men loomed over him, all wearing cheap suits and too much gold jewelry.

The hand on Sanha’s shoulder was missing two fingers at the first knuckle.

“Pardon?”

The grip on his shoulder tightened painfully. “What was the message?”

Eunwoo had always been strict - come straight back to the restaurant. Before he’d been strict as well, not letting Sanha know what the messages were. It had to be for a reason.

“I don’t remember,” Sanha said.

The fist caught him across the face before he could blink.

His head spun. He tasted blood in his mouth.

“Try,” the man said, raising his fist again.

Sanha did the only thing he could think of. He shouted for MJ.

The man punched him in the face again.

He hit the ground.

He heard a door slam open, heard MJ yelling.

Sanha curled in on himself, heart pounding. He realized he was crying when he tried to reach out to MJ and couldn’t see. He fumbled in his pocket for his flip phone. He could feel the buttons. He could call 119.

But he couldn’t see, and his head hurt.

He shouted, “Help! Someone help!”

A hand clamped over his mouth. “Sh! No!”

Sanha struggled.

“Sanha, calm down, it’s me.”

Sanha blinked rapidly.

MJ pulled Sanha to his feet and into the restaurant, slammed the door behind him and locked it. Sanha tried to look over his shoulder at the men who’d attacked him, but MJ dragged him further into the restaurant and into the back, to the little room where everyone stashed their personal effects before starting their shifts.

“Hyung,” Sanha gasped out, struggling to catch his breath between sobs. “We have to call the police.”

“No,” MJ said.

His face was bruised. There was blood on his shirt and his hands.

“We have to call an ambulance. You’re hurt!” Sanha went to tug on MJ’s arm, hesitated.

“I’ll patch us up,” MJ said. He ducked into the kitchen, returned with a cold egg. “Here. for your bruised face.”

Sanha accepted the egg, confused. “I’m bruised? Where?” And then he felt it, the ache on his jaw and cheekbone.

“Hyung, those men could have killed us,” Sanha said. 

“What did they want?” MJ sounded perfectly calm. He fetched a first aid kit from one of the cupboards. The restaurant had a very nice first aid kit, because burns and cuts abounded in a kitchen.

“They wanted to know what I said to the Butcher.” Sanha pressed the egg to his face with shaking hands. He was shaking all over. He was cold. So cold.

“Did you tell them?” MJ wiped blood off the corner of Sanha’s mouth.

“No. I would never.”

“Good.”

Sanha wiped tears out of his eyes again. “Hyung, you’re more hurt than I am.”

“No, I’m not.” MJ stepped back. “You should probably stay with me and Jinjin tonight. If your mother sees you -”

Sanha nodded. “Okay. Should we call Jinjin? Let me help you -”

“Like I said, I’m fine.”

“But - the blood -” Sanha gestured at MJ’s ruined uniform.

“It’s not mine.” MJ stepped back. He opened one of the other cupboards and found some clean clothes. Then he took off his apron and put it into a brown paper bag. He took off his shoes, and his socks and added them to the bag. Then he unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it off.

Sanha stared.

There was a massive tattoo covering MJ’s entire back, a beautifully detailed four-clawed dragon with its head nestled at one of his shoulders, its body winding sinuously down his spine. Its tail disappeared down the waistband of his trousers.

Sanha realized. “Hyung, you -”

MJ glanced over his shoulder. “I’m one of the chief lieutenants in the Fantagio Boys, yes.”

“But -”

“None of this will come back to you, I promise,” MJ said.

Sanha’s throat closed. No. The one thing he’d promised himself he wouldn’t do, and he’d done it anyway.

MJ turned to him, knelt so they were eye-to-eye. “I promise,” he said again. 

Sanha started to ask if Jinjin and Eunwoo knew, but then he thought of the tattoo he’d glimpsed at Jinjin’s collar, his brightly-colored hair, and how Eunwoo had been the first to ask him to run an errand.

Sanha said, “I’m quitting.”

MJ bit his lip. “Sanha, please.”

“I saw what happened to the other boys in my class who went this way, and I won’t -”

“You won’t end up like them. I’ll never let that happen.”

“I could have died tonight.”

“I’ll never let that happen either,” MJ said. “We need you.”

“Me?” Sanha echoed. “What could I possibly do for you?”

“What you’ve been doing. Nothing more.”

“I won’t help you commit crimes. I won’t!” Sanha shook him off.

MJ sighed. “We’re not. It’s not how you think.”

“Then explain it to me.” Sanha crossed his arms over his chest - and slid one hand into his jacket’s inner pocket for his phone.

“I don’t have authority to decide how much you know,” MJ said.

“Then call Eunwoo and tell him if he doesn’t tell me everything I’ll quit,” Sanha said.

“Eunwoo? Ah. You’re smarter than you look.” MJ looked pleased - and relieved. He straightened up, reached for his phone. “All right. I’ll call Eunwoo.”

Sanha nodded but didn’t loosen his grip on the phone. Although it was a phone Eunwoo had given to him. Would he know if Sanha called the police?

MJ had a murmured conversation, then pocketed his phone. “Eunwoo’s on his way.”

“Then we’ll wait.”

MJ nodded. He changed into clean trousers, then reached for a clean shirt.

Sanha said, “Your tattoo is really pretty.”

MJ glanced over his shoulder at Sanha. “Thanks.”

“I never imagined that you had a tattoo, but if you did, I thought it would be - I don’t know, a unicorn or a kitten or something.” Sanha tried to smile, wince when it pulled his cut lip.

“Careful.” MJ reached out, smoothed a hand over Sanha’s hair. “I never imagined having this kind of tattoo either, but life takes us to strange places sometimes.”

“Will I have to get a tattoo like that?” Sanha asked.

“No. You should get a kitten or a unicorn.”

Sanha laughed softly.

He jumped when he heard a noise in the kitchen.

MJ shifted to stand in front of him, and Sanha’s heartbeat stuttered when he saw the gun in MJ’s hand.

“Don’t worry,” MJ said. “The Boss is here.”


End file.
